1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for using a rubber product or a rubber member used in clean environments such as a clean room, and also concerns a manufacturing method for an electronic part using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in a clean room inside an electronic part manufacturing facility, etc., with respect to gloves for handling electronic parts or their elements, those made of natural rubber corresponding to Class 100, etc., are mainly adopted. Such rubber gloves have a problem in which they tend to cause a reduction in the yield in a sputtering process using them to handle substrates, etc. prior to the sputtering process, although contaminants have been removed therefrom by sufficiently washing them upon production. It is considered that the substrates are contaminated by re-adhesion of contaminants such as dusts that have adhered to the gloves.
However, although the inventors of the present application increased the number of glove exchanges in order to solve the above-mentioned problem, the situation was hardly improved. When contaminants, which were supposed to raise the problem, were analyzed, contaminants derived from calcium, sulfur, etc. generated from the gloves themselves were detected. Moreover, it has been revealed that silica or carbon-based contaminants, which have adhered to the rubber gloves upon their contact with electronic parts and their elements, re-adhere to the substrates, thereby causing the contamination.
However, the generation of these contaminants is inevitable when rubber materials such as natural rubber are used. Moreover, with respect to the contaminants adhered to the gloves upon their contact with electronic parts and their elements, even if improvements of the working environments are taken, there is a limitation in the reduction thereof. Although studies have been made on other rubber materials and substitute materials for the rubber materials, appropriate materials have not been found.
Here, not limited to rubber gloves, the above mentioned problem is a common problem which tends to arise in any rubber product and rubber member that are used in clean environments. Also with respect to the generation of contaminants from rubber materials themselves, the problem tends to arise even in rubber materials that are not subjected to direct contact upon handling.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a method of use for a rubber product or a rubber member which can prevent generation of contaminants from the rubber materials and also prevent re-adhesion of contaminants that have adhered thereto later on, and to provide a manufacturing method for electronic parts wherein such a method is adopted.
The inventors tried various modifications and treatments for the surface of a rubber material in order to achieve the above-mentioned object. As a result, we discovered the aforementioned objective could be achieved by a surprisingly simple method, that is, the surface of the rubber material is swelled by a suitable solvent, thereby completing the present invention.